Mobilizing Community During the Pandemic
The carefully-run four-year Kenya Magarini program ended with $7, 635 in unspent funds remaining just as the impact of COVID-19 was making itself felt around the world. Local partner ADS-Pwani reached out and received approval from World Renew and Growing Hope to use the money to help the community stay safe.
ADS-Pwani gave a series of informative training events for women, especially pregnant mothers, and children. Follow-up home visits from ADS-Pwani encouraged the men and boys to comply with guidelines and help the women and girls as much as they could, for the good of the entire community.
Participants learned about COVID-19 transmission, signs and symptoms, prevention and control, and received bottles of bleach for sanitizing surfaces. The funds also covered radio talk shows, daily community-service spots about the virus, and a vehicle-mounted public address system in the villages. Reflector vests for community health volunteers and banners with basic messages on prevention and control measures were printed in English, Kiswahili and the local language, Giryama. All this was done in coordination with other local, government and international agencies which supplied soap, access to clean water, towels, masks, water-purifying tablets and other necessities in order to reach the greatest number of individuals in the area.
Janet (not her real name), the main breadwinner for her large family who lost her job at a restaurant because of the pandemic, showed special enthusiasm as she attended a training session and received the sanitation items.
“Hooooooh! How happy am I today.” she exclaimed, “My family and I will be able to protect ourselves from COVID-19.” She was so relieved that she became a goodwill ambassador for prevention, telling her friends and colleagues and all she met what they needed to know to stay safe.
Kenya Magarini Program
Led by World Renew and ADS-Pwani